Equine diseases encompass a wide range of health conditions that can affect horses, including infectious diseases, metabolic disorders, and genetic conditions. These diseases can impact the overall health, performance, and well-being of horses. Common equine diseases include equine influenza, equine herpesvirus, laminitis, and equine metabolic syndrome. Diagnosis and management of these diseases often require a combination of clinical evaluation, laboratory testing, and appropriate treatment strategies. This page gathers peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore the etiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment options for various equine diseases, providing valuable insights for veterinarians and researchers in the field.
Garner A, Griffiths P.The purpose of this paper is to describe congenital defects, having no direct counterpart in
the literature, that affected both eyes of a new-born foal of pedigree racing stock, which
otherwise appeared to be entirely healthy as were both the sire and the dam.
Gastal GDA, Scarlet D, Melchert M, Ertl R, Aurich C.In embryos subjected to assisted reproductive techniques, epigenetic modifications may occur that can influence embryonic development and the establishment of pregnancy. In horses, the storage temperature during transport of fresh embryos before transfer is a major concern. The aim of this study was, therefore, to determine the effects of two storage temperatures (5 °C and 20 °C) on equine embryos, collected at day seven after ovulation and stored for 24 h, on: (i) morphological development; (ii) expression of candidate genes associated with embryo growth and development, maternal recognitio...
Lord CC, Woolhouse ME, Mellor PS.Factors affecting epidemics of African horse sickness in Spain were studied using a mathematical model. The model examined the likelihood of an epidemic after the introduction of the virus, and the effectiveness of vaccination strategies. Two host species (horses and donkeys) and one vector species (the biting midge Culicoides imicola) were included. A stratified random sampling method (Latin hypercube sampling) was used for sensitivity analysis of the likelihood of an epidemic. Systematic variation of vaccination parameters was used to consider alternative control strategies. In general, when...
Velásquez J, da Silva LLC, Miglino MA.There are many challenges in teaching veterinary anatomy, such as available classroom time, costs, and difficulties accessing animal cadavers, mainly due to animal welfare concerns. Furthermore, veterinary surgeons and radiologists complain that recent graduates lack anatomical knowledge. On the other hand, the current limitations of face-to-face teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that the development of online distance education tools is necessary, mainly in specialties that lack this type of material. Teaching platforms promoting the integration of anatomy with other applied disci...
Kaneene JB, Miller R, Ross W, Gilbert L.Data from two 12 month prospective monitoring programs that followed management, economics and animal health from randomly-sampled equine operations in Michigan were used to determine patterns of health maintenance. Health maintenance measures were grouped, and average uses per year were computed for the most-common measures reported: respiratory, Potomac Horse Fever, neurological and multiple-system vaccinations, deworming, and general farrier work. Factors examined for potential association with health maintenance measure use were numbers of equids and horse-days on the operation, average ag...
Yamada K, Araki M, Tokushige H, Fujiki R, Sakai S, Tateno O, Mashita S, Kusano K.Equine scintigraphy has been legally permitted in Japan since 2009; however, it has not yet been a routine modality for horses. One reason is the legal regulations concerning the disposal of contaminated bedding. However, overseas, the bedding after scintigraphy can be disposed following radioactivity decay, but this is not allowed in Japan. Therefore, beddings are required to stored permanently in a controlled area, implying that large amounts of beddings such as straw would be kept untreated, which is quite unpractical. This may cause a hospital owner to hesitate to construct an equine scint...
Carstanjen B, Amory H, Youssao I, Remy B.The purpose of this study was to validate an equine-specific osteocalcin (OC) radioimmunoassay (RIA) for use in donkeys and to establish age-related changes in serum OC concentrations in healthy donkeys. Serial dilutions of donkey serum showed parallelism with standard curves obtained with the equine-specific OC RIA. There was a tight linear regression between donkey serum OC values obtained with the equine specific OC RIA and a commercially available bovine-specific OC RIA. Serum OC levels of 27 healthy donkeys, analysed with the equine-specific OC RIA, showed a tight negative logarithmic reg...
Meijer P.Two cases of tetany in the horse are reported. The two patients were thoroughbreds. One was eight and the other thirteen years old. The mares were in heat and were brought to the service (stud) station to be mated. Both patients were nursing a foal. One was a four-week-old foal and the other was seven weeks old. The calcium level of the serum had dropped in the two patients, to 4.0 mg and 5.4 per ml. respectively. The magnesium level was 1.0 mg and 1.9 mg per 100 ml. respectively. The animals responded satisfactorily to intravenous infusion of calcium borogluconate and magnesium chloride. One ...
Hago BE, Vaughan LC, Plummer JM.A transmission electron microscope study was undertaken to investigate the details of the synovial tendon sheath and bursal lining in horses. The lining cells appeared to be fibroblasts and were buried in a finely granular ground substance. Generally these cells had poor cytoplasmic organelles, sparse short profiles of rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER), few scattered ribosomes and, occasionally, a poorly developed Golgi complex. However, a few lining cells appeared more active, having pronounced RER with dilated cisternane. The surface of the lining cells, particularly those with dilated RER, ...
Nollet H, Deprez P.Since riders nowadays are expecting the highest level of performance from their horses, muscular disorders therefore represent a major problem for the equine athlete. A lot of research has been done to identify muscular disorders and their etiopathogenesis. Both acquired and inherited forms of muscle diseases have been described. In this review only the latter forms will be mentioned. Major signs of all muscle disorders are muscular stiffness, cramping or pain, muscular fasciculations, muscular atrophy and exercise intolerance. Muscle biopsies can help to identify the cause of rhabdomyolysis o...
Bristol DG, Cullen J.An inverting, triangulated, stapled, end-to-end anastomosis technique was evaluated in the jejunum of four horses. None of the horses showed evidence of gastrointestinal disturbance after surgery; however, stricture and adhesion formation were pronounced in three animals examined 10 days, one month, and two months after surgery. The animal examined four months after surgery had no adhesions present at the anastomosis, and only mild narrowing of the intestinal lumen. Histologic examination of the anastomoses showed lack of a normal mucosal lining in some examined sections up to two months posts...
Brewer K, Machin J, Maylin G, Fenger C, Morales-Briceño A, Tobin T.Gabapentin, 1-(Aminomethyl)cyclohexaneacetic acid, MW 171.240, is a frequently prescribed high dose human medication that is also used recreationally. Gabapentin is orally absorbed; the dose can be 3,000 mg/day and it is excreted essentially unchanged in urine. Gabapentin is stable in the environment and routinely detected in urban wastewater. Gabapentin randomly transfers from humans to racing horses and is at times detected at pharmacologically ineffective / trace level concentrations in equine plasma and urine. In Ohio racing between January 2019 and July 2020,18 Gabapentin identifications...
Lean NE, Franklin SH, Steel C, Woolford L, White J, Ahern BJ.Little is known about potential differences in the left recurrent laryngeal nerve (Lrln) and left cricoarytenoideus dorsalis (LCAD) muscle between domestic and feral horse populations. If a difference exists, feral horses may provide a useful control population for research related to recurrent laryngeal neuropathy (RLN) and increase our understanding of potential population pressures influencing the incidence RLN. The objective of this study was to compare the Lrln and LCAD of domestic and feral horses using histological and immunohistochemical techniques (IHC). Sixteen horses, domestic (n = ...
Carrier SP, Boulanger P, Bannister GL.The comparative values of the direct, the indirect complement-fixation and the agar-gel immunodiffusion tests were assessed for the diagnosis of equine infectious anemia. Antibodies were detected on the agar-gel immunodiffusion test as early as 18 days post-inoculation in the serums of experimentally infected horses and were readily detectable in all the subsequent bleedings. Complement-fixing antibodies, demonstrable by the direct method, were detected commencing about the same time. However, these were not long-lasting and were replaced by the non-complement-fixing antibodies demonstrable by...
Júnior ÂMCA, da Silva AH, Bastos FL, Seidner JT, Filho LAJM, Faleiros RR, Gobesso AAO.This study evaluated the incidence of gastritis in foals subjected to different weaning management methods. Sixteen crossbreed foals [230 ± 35 kg], were enrolled in an experiment with a randomized block design. After weaning, foals were housed in either individual pens or a group pen. Gastritis in the foals was evaluated through gastroscopy. Data were submitted to analysis of variance by the non-parametric Friedman test at 0.05 significance level. Before weaning, gastritis was observed in 87.5% of the foals, and the scores for the number of gastric lesions were 2.10 and 1.56 for foals housed ...
Kelley LC, Hill JE, Hafner S, Wortham KJ.Spontaneous equine pulmonary granular cell tumors were diagnosed in six mature horses at slaughter. These tumors were grossly recognized as multiple (5/6) or single (1/6) creamy white, firm nodules. The tumors, located adjacent to bronchi and bronchioles, often invaded airways, resulting in partial to complete occlusion of the lumina. Neoplastic cells were rounded to polyhedral with numerous eosinophilic cytoplasmic granules that reacted uniformly positive with S-100 and neuron-specific enolase antibodies and multifocally with glial fibrillary acidic protein antibodies. These cells were negati...
Soma LR, Uboh CE, Rudy JA, Smith MS.To examine, in horses, the disposition and excretion of the active metabolite 6-methoxy-2-naphthylacetic acid (6MNA) of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory prodrug nabumetone. Methods: Pharmacokinetic analysis of 6MNA after oral administration of nabumetone and IV administration of 6MNA. Methods: Using a crossover design, 5 horses were orally administered 3.7 mg of nabumetone/kg of body weight. After a 3-week washout period, 4 horses were administered 2.5 mg of 6MNA/kg, IV. Results: Absorption of nabumetone from the gastrointestinal tract and its metabolism to 6MNA had a median appearance half-...
Ahmed SM, Broad SC, Edington N.Sera from two sibling groups of ponies experimentally infected with Equid herpesvirus 1 or 4 (EHV-1 or 4) were used to investigate which viral polypeptides (VPs) of EHV-1 and EHV-4 were recognised. Recognition was detected as early as 8 d.p.i. and thereafter. The polypeptides of EHV-1 (labelled with 35S-methionine) immunoprecipitated (IIP) by sera from both groups had Mr of 148, 138, 123, 117, 110, 77-79, 70, 55, 49-50, 47, 40 and 35-37 kDa respectively. Of these VP148K (VP9 nucleocapsid) gave the maximum precipitation, followed by 117 and 77-79 kDa. The latter were confirmed by monoclonal ant...
Skarda RT, Muir WW, Couri D.Arterial and/or central venous plasma concentrations of lidocaine were determined in 12 nonmedicated adult horses (422 +/- 59 kg of body weight, mean +/- SD) after injecting a 1% lidocaine HCl solution into the cervicothoracic ganglion (CTG). A mean dosage of 2.9 +/- 0.5 mg of lidocaine/kg of body weight was used to induce unilateral CTG blockade in 8 horses and 4.8 +/- 0.8 mg was used to induce bilateral CTG blockade in 4 horses. Blood samples were collected before and at 5, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, and 120 minutes after injection. The plasma lidocaine concentrations were determined by us...
Page AE, Stills HF, Chander Y, Gebhart CJ, Horohov DW.Lawsonia intracellularis is the causative agent of equine proliferative enteropathy (EPE), a disease for which no large-scale seroprevalence studies have been conducted. Objective: To validate and use an equine-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for L. intracellularis to determine the seroprevalence of L. intracellularis on numerous farms. Methods: An ELISA, in which purified antigen was used, was adapted from previous work in swine. A total of 337 Thoroughbreds from 25 central Kentucky farms were enrolled and monthly serum samples collected from August 2010 to January/February...
Baus MR, Magnus RP.Purchasing new or used capital assets involves both emotional and financial components in the decision making process. In addition, there are intangible factors such as client perceptions and expectations that fit into the equation. Identify the facts from a business perspective and then define whether this investment (expense) is good for the practice and fits with the short- and long-term growth strategies. Ask the tough questions, analyze the numbers, understand the clients’ needs, and tie this together with the practice brand and strategic objectives. The informed and prepared buyer is u...
Ousey JC, Rossdale PD, Cash RS, Worthy K.Multiparous pregnant mares, on two studfarms, were studied following natural challenge with equid herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1). They were divided into three groups according to serum complement fixation titres: Group A (N = 11) were not challenged and delivered normal foals; Group B (N = 13) were challenged but delivered normal foals; Group C (N = 23) were challenged and delivered infected foals which were stillborn or lived for less than 31 h. In Groups A and B mean (+/- s.d.) gestational age at delivery was 343 (+/- 8) and 339 (+/- 8) days respectively, whereas in Group C it was significantly (P le...
Staszyk C, Jackowiak H, Godynicki S, Gasse H.The microvascularisation of the equine non-glandular gastric mucosa was investigated using corrosion casts for scanning electron microscopy. Specimens from 11 healthy horses were examined. Corresponding to the high incidence of gastric lesions in the margo plicatus, special attention was paid to the differentiation between the pars nonglandularis and the margo plicatus as a distinct area of the aglandular mucosa. In both areas, the blood vessels of the lamina propria mucosae were arranged in three vascular layers; i. e. I) a basal, II) an intermediate, and III) a subepithelial horizontal level...
Bennett D.The gross and histological features of multiple bone infection in two foals are described. In both cases the lesions were confined to the region of the growth plate. Bone and, in some cases, growth plate cartilage destruction has occurred associated with an extensive inflammatory cell infiltration. The significance of the pathological observation is discussed in relation to the pathogenesis of bone infection in the foal.
Coyne CP, Smith JE, DeBowes RM.Several pharmaceutical compounds were evaluated for their ability to selectively inhibit activated coagulation factor-XIII-like enzyme activity (eg, XIIIa*) in pooled equine plasma. Presence of coagulation factor-XIIIa*-like enzyme activity in plasma was established by assay procedures involving incorporation of the fluorescent amine compound, monodansylcadaverine, into purified casein, which served as a protein substrate. Pharmaceuticals inhibitory to coagulation factor-XIIIa*-like enzyme activity were recognized by plasma gel formation of high spectrophotometric transmittance (transparency),...
Batt RM, Burgess D, Edwards GB, van de Waal S, Sørensen SH, Hart CA.To examine the postnatal development of equine small intestine, biopsy specimens of jejunal mucosa from 8 ponies, between 6 and 28 weeks old, were subjected to analytical subcellular fractionation and assay of organelle marker enzymes. Fractionation revealed a reduction in the particulate brush border component of beta-galactosidase (lactase) activity between 6 and 28 weeks, and a corresponding increase in soluble activity, although the reduction in mean specific activity was not significant. There also was a decrease in the proportion of brush border to soluble aminopeptidase N activity, a re...
Kot K, Tischner M.The aim of the experiment was to determine the effect of a year-to-year prolonged daylength on the patterns of equine reproductive activity and results of embryo recovery. Experiments using Konik Polski mares were conducted over four reproduction seasons. Five mares were exposed to a regimen of artificially prolonged daylength (APD) and another five mares in a control group were kept under conditions of natural daylight. Both the control and experimental groups were examined for appearance of estrus, ovulation and also for the state of their coats. A single stallion was used for breeding all o...
Brom-de-Luna JG, Salgado RM, Felix MR, Canesin HS, Stefanovski D, Diaw M, Hinrichs K.In vitro production of horse embryos via intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is a useful clinical and research technique. Current rates of blastocyst production are typically sub-optimal, and few methods to increase the rate of equine blastocyst development have been reported. Factors that might improve blastocyst production in a horse embryo culture system were explored. Myo-inositol is found in the horse oviduct and improves blastocyst development in other species, thus Experiment 1 was conducted to assess the effect of 10 mM myo-inositol added to Day 0-5 embryo culture medium, using hor...
Dunkel B, Knowles EJ, Chang YM, Menzies-Gow NJ.Blood l-lactate concentrations are higher in people with developing or established diabetes mellitus and insulin resistance. Objective: To investigate whether blood l-lactate concentrations are positively correlated with measures of insulin dysregulation (ID) or increased autumnal ACTH concentrations in ponies. Methods: Systemically healthy client-owned ponies (n = 101). Methods: Prospective case-control study. Blood samples were obtained from 101 clinically healthy ponies. Breed, weight, height, and subjective and objective measures of body condition were recorded. Blood l-lactate, glucose, t...
Paine SW, Aldurdunji M, Garth-Greeves A, Muir T, Hincks PR.Hydroxyzine and cetirizine are first- and second-generation oral antihistamine drugs, respectively, used to treat allergic reactions in horses. Cetirizine is also a metabolite of hydroxyzine, which may lead to complexities in regulating their use in equine sporting events. The aim of the research was to be able to provide detection times (DT) from pharmacokinetic studies in thoroughbred horses to better inform trainers, and their veterinary surgeons, prescribing these substances for treatment of Thoroughbred racehorses. Six and two horses were given 9 repeated administrations of hydroxyzine HC...
Abd El Kader NA, Farghali HA, Abu-Seida AM, Salem NY, Khattab MS.Early detection of cystitis in equine is essential to improve the prognosis and outcome of therapy. However, the conventional white light endoscopy is not sufficiently accurate for this purpose. Hence, this study evaluated chromoendoscopy as a recent diagnostic tool for cystitis in female donkeys. For this purpose, 5 apparently normal donkeys (control group) and 5 female donkeys with cystitis (diseased group) were used. Physical and rectal examinations, urine analysis, white light cystoscopy, methylene blue-based chromoendoscopy and histopathology were performed in all animals. Turbid urine ex...
